Sunday, December 8, 2013

After a
three-week barnstorming tour of the five boroughs, the Mobile Shakespeare Unit
returns home to the Public. Presumably the rehearsal period for this Much Ado About Nothing was as brisk as
its 100-minute runtime or 21-day tour, since it has a spontaneity that’s refreshing
after an autumn of elaborate and often artificial Shakespeare.

The show
opens to swanky synthetic music and an intro for each character, lightly
suggests a world found mainly in reality TV. The conceit reinforces the play’s exploration
of eavesdropping and of toying with other people’s romantic lives. But director
Kwame Kwei-Armah barely acknowledges such frippery as concept or theme, and
leaves the spectacle to Broadway. Instead, he directs the cast to perform with
a conversational clarity. His tone fits the design, which suggests the show’s
origin as a touring production: a 15’x15’ square of artificial turf for the
stage, a boombox for sound, minimal props, and whatever lighting is available. The
costuming has a factory-made, off-the-rack look: women in pink dresses and
gaudy heels, men in inoffensive khakis and blazers.

That DIY
design means that the actors must hold the audience’s focus unaided (all the
more firmly for the Mobile Unit’s audiences, presumably unaccustomed to regular
theatergoing). With eight actors taking 15 roles, their approach to playing is broad
rather than refined (Shakespeare’s script is helpfully prose-heavy). More
practiced than rehearsed, the style favors the comedic subplots over the
romantic ones. So, predictably, Dogberry and the Watch make a strong
impression. Lucas Caleb Rooney triumphantly leads the clowns, preening and
bullying his way through a mockery of an interrogation. He also earns hisses
from the audience as Don John, whose petty acts of villainy run from defaming
the ingenue Hero before her wedding to bogarting his henchman’s joint.

But the company’s
rough style does short the play’s more passionate scenes to some extent. The
only scenes that measure up to the comic turns are those later scenes of
romantic negotiation between Beatrice and Benedick. Samantha Soule’s Beatrice
takes no BS, and her demand that Benedick challenge his friend to a duel puts
him at a loss for words for the first time in the play. Ironically, she and her
Benedick, Michael Braun, do better with the tough romantic wooing than with the
scenes where they’re tricked into loving each other—usually a showcase of farce,
here a set of stumbles that are the show’s only missed opportunity.

That
flaw, however, is balanced by Kwei-Armah’s one addition to Shakespeare’s action.
Late in the play, Claudio, the juvenile lead, makes a public apology at Hero’s tomb.
In this staging, Hero eavesdrops on the scene and then decides, with a thought
and a gesture, whether or not to forgive him. It’s a brilliant silent moment
that gives the young woman a measure of autonomy and amends an outmoded aspect
of the plot, as well as echoing the scenes of spying that Much Ado is packed with. It’s the sort of detail that makes this Much Ado as strong as this fall’s more
elaborate (and expensive) Shakespeare.

Hero decides to wed Claudio,despite his betrayal, and so redeems him(photo: Carol Rosegg)

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Incidentally, I interviewed this production's Leonato, Ramsey Faragallah, for New York Theater Review. Once he read Shakespeare in his California high school, he "became actively interested in things other than surfing, street racing and loud music." Me too.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Does Maria make a fool of Malvolio, or does he do it to himself?(photo: Joan Marcus)

Maybe
you read about this Thanksgiving weekend’s viral entertainment; if not, here’s the short
version. On a delayed flight, a woman took the inconvenience personally and
complained loudly. Her fellow passenger decided to pass the time by calling her
out on her egotism and goading her via a set of notes. He also publicized his
actions via social media. You can read it here.

As
memes go, it’s kind of implausible (in fact, skeptics have
already started to debunk the story). Still, many readers and viewers have
applauded the passenger’s behavior, contending that the woman deserved it for
her rudeness.But I found the whole
situation ugly. Even putting aside issues of gender, age, race, and social
station (some of which were explicit factors in the targeting, others
implicit), I recoiled from the punitive quality of the humiliation.

Shakespeare
fans will recognize the scenario as a gulling. In the Shakespearean and
Restoration eras, English audiences particularly enjoyed a comic plot which saw
ill-mannered character tricked into humiliating themselves. The most famous
target is Malvolio, while the Beatrice/Benedick subplot features gulling at
its most benign. But once you look for the device, you’ll start to notice some sort of trick or dupe in
nearly every one of Shakespeare’s plays.

In
the case of Twelfth Night, productions often mitigate Malvolio’s humiliation or apologize for it by making his exit sympathetic. While
I do think Shakespeare applies the device with a touch of ambiguity, for the
sake of artistic complexity, it’s only a touch. Like Shylock, Malvolio is meant
to get punished and banished from the stage; that’s part of the comedy, in an
archetypal sense. But those productions are uncomfortable with the abuse of
Malvolio.

And
so am I. I have a lot of trouble with gulling as a device and (depending on the
play and production) I don’t like Shakespeare when he uses it. I recoil inwardly
when Titania learns that she’s spent the night with a beast. I had the same reaction
to the Thanksgiving Gulling of 2013. It was ugly behavior on both players’
parts. But I suppose it should hearten directors to see that audiences can
enjoy a gulling with as much cruel humor today as they could 400 years ago.

Update:

Someone
on my Facebook feed has pointed out that the perpetrator of the airline gulling
produces a reality TV show. That makes sense, and links directly the pleasure
of watching the upstart of Shakespearean drama get his comeuppance and that of
watching the fools of reality TV humiliate themselves.

About Me

I'm a freelance critic and dramaturg living in the NYC area (and available for hire!). I believe that plays should challenge the intellect and tickle the wit as well as stimulate the senses. They should tackle the most urgent social, political, and cultural subjects.
My tastes often run towards classic work but they also pull towards the avant-garde. My greatest challenge is to square my love for classics with an urge to look forward.
Also, I seek out theater with elements of science and science fiction onstage. My love for these themes and tropes stems from a belief that they're essential to understanding and reflecting life in the 21st century. Sci fi is also a popular narrative form that can champion free and unconventional thinking and inclusiveness.